This is the last year for adding vendors to SeaPort-e! Per the Navy’s Special Notice: “This is a special notice to inform vendors that after this Rolling Admission period, there are no plans to add new vendors to the current SeaPort-e program.”

So if you’re thinking about becoming a SeaPort-e contract holder, this is your last chance it seems.

Synopsis – Rolling Admissions Fiscal Year 2016 – Updated Solicitation Release Date to 09 November 2015 The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, on behalf of the Naval Sea Systems Command and the Navy Virtual SYSCOM (partners NAVSUP, NAVAIR, SPAWAR and NAVFAC) along with other Navy activities and Marine Corps, is conducting a rolling admission per the terms and conditions of the SeaPort Enhanced (Seaport-e) Multiple Award Contracts. The purpose of this rolling admission is to expand the contractor base by awarding additional Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity (ID/IQ) prime contracts. Existing Seaport-e prime contractors will also have the opportunity to expand their presence in other geographical zones to allow them to compete for Task Order awards in those zones and to voluntarily re-certify their size status. The NAICS code for this procurement is 541330 and the revenue size standard for Small Business is $38.5 Million. SeaPort-e is the Navy’s electronic platform for acquiring support services in 22 functional areas including Engineering, Financial Management, and Program Management. Authorized ordering activities compete their service requirements amongst SeaPort-e IDIQ multiple award contract holders. All task orders are competitively solicited, awarded and managed using the SeaPort-e electronic platform. Oral proposals will not be conducted. Awards will be made on initial offers without discussions. Please email questions concerning Rolling Admissions to seaport_epco@navy.mil. The Government desires an increase in Small Business, HubZone, Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB); Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB); Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB); and 8(a) concerns. Businesses in these categories are encouraged to submit offers as primes. Information concerning this rolling admission is available on the Seaport homepage at http://www.seaport.navy.mil. Copies of the previous Rolling Admission solicitation N00178- 14-R-4000, the original Rolling Admission Industry Brief (dated November 2004), and questions and answers to the previous solicitations can currently be found on the homepage. The solicitation number for this Rolling Admissions is N00178-16-R-4000. It is anticipated that a solicitation will be issued on 09 November 2015 with a response date of 21 January 2016. The target date for the Rolling Admission awards is June 2016. The Government reserves the right to change these dates. It is the potential offeror’s responsibility to monitor the Seaport site for the release of solicitations, amendments, and supporting information.

Contact Arrowhead Solutions if you would like assistance with building your SeaPort-e proposal. We have built proposals for every round of rolling admissions since 2009 with a 100% win rate.

Receiving a contract from the SBIR/STTR program and developing technology from that contract is the first step to realizing your company’s success. Once your product or innovation is mastered and ready for market, the entirely new challenge of developing business for your product takes precedent. Many SBIR funded businesses are initially – and understandably – organized to develop technology and innovation, not drive sales or create demand in a niche market. This is when SBIR/STTR awardees often fail and the hours of R&D are wasted because, well, engineers and scientist are not trained or experienced in federal contracting or business marketing, sales and development.

What are an SBIR/STTR funded tech company’s options for commercialization?

Outside assistance is really the only reasonable option, as federal contracting policies are always changing and take years to grasp. Plus, bringing an experienced professional in-house fulltime is costly and poses a high financial risk without seeing how the market is going to play out first. Also, developing relationships within the government contracting industry will play a vital role, as it does with any business and their appropriate market.

DoD and DoE Discretionary Technical Assistance Support Program (other agencies may offer this as well)

SBIR funded innovation and technology notoriously have issues finding success in the marketplace, so much so that the DoD Discretionary Technical Assistance was created to help combat the fall-off. The program allows SBIR/STTR awardees to request/add up to $5,000 to their SBIR proposal/award to allot for bringing in help via government consulting agencies.

Arrowhead’s All-Star Team

Gary Henry has over 25 years of operational, contracting, strategic planning, business development and senior leadership experience in the federal contracting industry. He is also currently the Director of the Colorado PTAC (Procurement Technical Assistance Center). Henry’s expertise and connections are literally second to none within Colorado and within the top 1% of backgrounds anywhere else in the country for these expressed purposes.

Teaming with Mr. Henry for Arrowhead’s commercialization assistance is John Janczy, our Executive Technical Consultant. Mr. Janczy’s background encompasses over 30 years of experience in multi-million dollar High Tech Project Management, Mechanical and Systems Engineering and Analysis. Having spent more than 30 years at Lockheed Martin alone, Mr. Janczy was the recipient of numerous awards and letters of commendations. John is truly an asset, as his wealth of knowledge, analytical acuity and connections are sought after by the biggest “players” in the industry.

The combination of John’s technical ability to understand your technology and communicate the proper messages to potential buyers with Gary’s rolodex of contacts, connections and market knowledge, provide your technology an all-star lineup for commercialization and marketplace success.

Remember, this assistance can be budgeted within your proposal and can afford your business with up to a $5,000 budget for this vital support.

Arrowhead Solutions, LLC is the state of Colorado PTAC’s Subject Matter Expert for GSA.

What is a Schedule? – The General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule (also referred to as Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) and Federal Supply Schedules) establish long-term government contracts with commercial firms. GSA Schedules provide fast, flexible, cost-effective procurement solutions that allow customers to meet acquisition challenges, while achieving their missions. There are forty different Schedules that cover everything from environmental services, furniture, restaurant equipment and finance to business solutions.

Acting almost like a catalog of supplies and services for the US Government to procure from, GSA Schedules can be an easy way for customers to access your supplies/services quickly and easily, to an extent. It seems to be a common belief that a GSA Schedule is a necessity and if your company doesn’t have one, you’ll be left behind. Let’s look at some of the pros, cons and considerations you should make before jumping into GSA.

Pros

– Access to all government customers, not just one particular agency – the Schedule Program is government-wide
– Ability to receive orders quickly
– Pre-negotiated terms, conditions, and pricing (thus allowing for your quick orders)
– Diversification of your company’s contract tools – having more ways for your government customer to reach you is good
– Five year award, with options up to another fifteen years

Cons
– Requirement to sell twenty five thousand dollars under the Schedule within the first twenty four months and twenty five thousand dollars every year after
– Work involved with proposal preparation – piles of documents and time needed to navigate the submission rules/process
– Length of time to award – although advertised and quick (for eOffers), GSA is backlogged by eight months right now
– Lower profit margins – your company is required to offer to the government a discount on top of your lowest prices
– Administration – your company is required to pay back the Industrial Funding Fee and report sales

Your particular company’s industry, size, time in business and client base should be taken into consideration before making the leap.

Considerations
– Is your industry dominated by competitors with schedules? Do they receive most of their revenue from GSA Schedules?
– Is your product or service in high demand and do you have current government clients complaining they can’t reach you easily?
– Have you been in business for over two years and do you have stellar track records and solid sales?
– Do you have the extra funding available to pay for your time, or that of outside assistance, to build your proposal?
– Are you willing to wait nearly a year to get on Schedule, or is your time better spent chasing other opportunities?

So, do the benefits of having a Schedule outweigh the costs of building a proposal, offering discounted pricing and administering the schedule? If the answer is yes, we can help.

The recently revised FAR Part 31 cost principles neither preclude nor forbid contractors from incurring employee compensation in excess of the cap. Instead they make employee compensation in excess of the cap unallowable in determining or negotiating the contract price. But only when the FAR Part 31 cost principles apply. And they don’t always apply! For example, any fixed-price type contract where the price is market-based.

But cost reimbursement and other flexibly priced contracts will be affected by this change. As will those fixed price contracts where cost analysis and related FAR 31 cost principles are used to negotiate the contract price.

So how will the change impact you or your government contractor clients? You decide.

The impact will be zero, if…

No employee earns compensation in excess of the cap, or
All business with Uncle Sam or prime contractors is based on “bottom-line” market based selling prices.

The impact may be minimum or insignificant depending on —

The dollar value of aggregate compensation in excess of the cap;
How and where the excess is recorded (direct or indirect costs); and
The mix of contracts based on market-based vs, cost-based pricing.

My opinion, for what it’s worth.

Take good care of yourselves. Or as Garrison Keillor would say “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”
federalregister.gov federalregister.gov

AsQ4 approaches, government contractors should be readying themselves for the mad dash.

Over a third of government contracts are awarded during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Government agencies are emptying their budgets and providing contractors a window of opportunity to seriously expand their client base.

Where do I start? Let the courtship begin!

Winning a government contract is very much a courtship. Government customers must know you, like you and have confidence in you. The courtship will take time and energy. Marketing and networking over the next few months are going to be crucial factors in the amount of new business you bring on board. Remember, these government customers are being wooed by every prince and every pauper. You must stand out in all the right ways. Be ready to discuss “what you are going to do for them”, not “what you have done in the past”. Your past merits will certainly come into play, but focus on your future together, as government contractor and government contractee.

In sickness and health, till contract expiration do us part.

With the threat of government shut downs no longer looming and a more stable government budget in place, spending should be ramped up in this fourth quarter.

Make sure your business get a filling piece of the pie!

Not sure where to start? Need help responding to proposals about to hit the market?

Arrowhead Solutions would like to introduce and welcome a new team member, Steve Griffin. Steve, PhD, joined Arrowhead Solutions in February 2014 and brings with him over 32 years of experience in Federal Government contracting.

Mr. Griffin has worked a wide variety of contracts types involving acquisition of supplies, services, research, weapons development and testing, and managed healthcare. In his career, Steve has worked for, worked as a contractor employee providing support to, or worked for firms contracting with the Federal Government.

Steve started his career in contracting in 1981 as a contracts intern with the U. S. Air Force at Luke Air Force. In 1983 the Air Force moved him to Nellis AFB, and from there he moved to the China Lake facility of the Naval Air Warfare Center in 1985, where he worked until 1992. In 1992, Steve moved to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, as a subcontract administrator. From 1994 until 1996 he worked for a small disadvantaged business which held a number of contracts with the FAA for asbestos inspection and monitoring as the manager of contracts at its Denver area office. From 1996 until 1998 Steve worked for an environmental engineering firm that held contracts with the EPA, Corps of Engineers, the U. S. Forest Service, and other Federal agencies. In 1998 Steve moved on to a contract administrator position with a firm supporting the contracting operations of the DoD TRICARE program, and in 1999 he returned to the Government with TRICARE as a contract administrator working a number of contracts to acquire healthcare services for active duty military, their family members, and military retirees. In 2000 Steve was appointed a contracting officer at TRICARE, and was responsible for the administration of five different regional healthcare services contracts over his time as a contracting officer at TRICARE. In 2006 Steve left TRICARE and contracting to pursue a PhD. During his time completing his degree program, Steve provided contracting advice and assistance to a firm that held healthcare administration contract with the DoD and the VA. From February 2013 through January 2014 Steve worked as a contract specialist as an employee of the firm providing support to the GSA, Region 8 FAS office in Lakewood, Colorado working a number of service contracts and task orders. With the end of his work at GSA, Steve joined Arrowhead Solutions.

Steve holds a BS in Natural Resource Management degree, a Master of Applied Communication degree, and a PhD in Communication Studies degree. He received a DAWIA Level III certification while with TRICARE, and earned a graduate certificate in ADR from the University of Denver while completing his master’s degree.